Years ago, in weather like we’re having now, on a Saturday evening a Coop flew right down Lock St in Tarentum at eye level carrying a pigeon right past me and landed in a tree between a house and a doctor’s office. I stopped at the corner at 2nd Ave (where some good friends live) and watched for a short while until the Coop dropped the pigeon and it landed on the windshield of a parked van and slid down onto the windshield wipers. The Coop took off shortly thereafter.

Next morning, in bitter cold, I went past about 8:30 and the Coop was standing on the windshield ripping feathers off that pigeon. Couldn’t afford to let that meal go to waste! I know the people who own that van only slightly, so it was a while before I got a chance to tell them what had happened and why there were feathers all over their van. They had no idea and had been wondering what the explanation was.

Coop never cleaned up that mess either 🙁

]]>By: Carlyhttp://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2014/01/18/looking-for-lunch/comment-page-1/#comment-45885
Sat, 18 Jan 2014 22:04:21 +0000http://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/?p=76195#comment-45885I woke up last week to a young Cooper’s Hawk munching on a pigeon right next to my window.

It was snowing and I was fairly close standing in the middle of Cherry St looking through that wire fence; that’s why the picture is a little blurry. These images are both the same, the last one I took, but the second version is enlarged and sharpened. BTW, that red on the COHA’s bill IS what you think it is! (Nature, red in tooth and [bill] )

The following Monday, Jan 6th, while eating lunch I saw the same COHA come in and perch on the front steps railing of the same house and after a minute fly through a large evergreen shrub and scatter all the little birds from their hiding place in there.

And I actually got a chance to tell the homeowner about it early this week. He thought it was a peregrine, but I had to disabuse him of that notion.

]]>By: stevehttp://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2014/01/18/looking-for-lunch/comment-page-1/#comment-45874
Sat, 18 Jan 2014 15:57:42 +0000http://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/?p=76195#comment-45874I just saw a Cooper’s Hawk like that one here in New Mexico. One of the members of our group, an experienced nest watcher, commented that he’d never seen white on the back to the extent that the one we saw had. But this one has even more. Nice photo. Good luck with the snow, it’s Sunny here.
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